The second day of this week’s Internext convention offered yet another diverse lineup of seminars targeted at webmasters hoping to learn new tools and ideas for increasing their revenue.
One of the most interesting seminars on Friday was the highly anticipated “Mind F*ck ’06” discussion, which included an opinionated panel of industry all-stars as moderated by YNOT’s Connor Young, who posed a series of thoughtful questions about issues of particular relevance to today’s webmasters.
Among the topics discussed, the issue of a potential dot-xxx domain produced a unanimous agreement from the panelists, who argued that such a domain would allow the government to further ghettoize, stigmatize, and penalize the adult industry.
ClubJenna’s Jay Grdina stressed the importance of self-policing within the industry in lieu of creating a specific domain reserved for porn. “When you start sandboxing where the industry can go, you [start to become a bully],” he offered.
Meanwhile, Cybersocket co-founder Morgan Summer called the proposed domain “stupid,” adding that, “people already find sex through keywords. I can’t see how it would make business better to have one area of the Internet for all adult content. [We would be] automatically labeling ourselves as porn and nothing else. It’s denigrating ourselves as businesspeople.”
The topic soon turned to the relevance of trade shows. Most of the panelists agreed that, while trade shows offer an invaluable opportunity for networking, they are exhausting for exhibitors to participate in. “I hate exhibiting,” complained Summer. “If we could just have gatherings, that would be fine.”
Bedfellow’s Karl Edwards said that he, too, enjoyed the shows because of the opportunity to meet and socialize with his fellow webmasters, but said, “The simple fact of the matter is that the industry is changing, and perhaps trade shows aren’t the best representation of where it’s heading. The industry’s not dying; it’s alive and well. It’s just not represented on the show floor anymore.”
TheBestPorn’s Aly Drummond noted, however, that trade shows are especially important in the current political climate because they allow webmasters to unite. “Especially when we’re at political odds with the rest of the world, it’s nice to have a gathering of brilliant perverts,” she cracked.
The issue of unity was, in fact, one that came up several times throughout the discussion, especially in the beginning, when New Destiny Internet Group Chief Executive Officer Spike Goldberg expressed his concern over the increasing prominence of extreme adult content. Citing Rob Black as an example of what he considered to be harmful to the industry’s reputation, Goldberg said he worried how such material might affect public opinion.
Grdina agreed, saying, “Everyone keeps pushing the envelope, and it’s making the industry look bad. When people say, ‘These are your fellow pornographers,’ I say, ‘You’re right.’ How do I defend this?’”
Grdina did say, however, that he thinks it is imperative for the industry to stick together through thick and thin. “As an industry, we have to support each other,” he said. “If one falls, we all go down together. We have to support [extreme webmasters like Black] even if we don’t like what they do, just for the purpose of free speech.”
Black later had the chance to defend himself during the surprisingly laid-back “Taking It to the Extreme” seminar, which featured Black, along with fellow panelists Dirty Danza (Desert Entertainment), Dirty D (HowIGotRich.com), and Tony Pirelli (Cybernet Entertainment), touching on issues surrounding extreme niche content. Ironically (and perhaps somewhat disappointingly), the seminar that offered the most potential for generating controversy was in fact very tame, with most of the discussion consisting of the panelists discussing the business side of extreme.
Dirty D touched on the practicality of niche content, saying, “Multiple sites with the same niche don’t draw nearly the same interest as multiple sites with multiple niches.”
After moderator Fred Lane finished presenting questions, it was opened up to the audience, at which time the discussion got a bit more interesting. When one audience member wondered if perhaps niche entertainment might be going too far, Pirelli stepped up to the plate to defend other extreme producers, citing the lack of legislature as primary defense. “The only things that shouldn’t be filmed are animals and underage,” he offered. “Everything else is [fair game]. There’s nothing written that says we can’t do it, so we shouldn’t stop. As long as we’re not hurting anybody, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
Another audience member wondered how much coercion was involved in the hiring of talent for such content, to which Dirty D replied, “There’s nothing that I can say to talk a girl into doing a gangbang.”
Black was, of course, the most vocal of the panelists, offering animated and often inflammatory rhetoric in defense of his work. “I’m sick of hearing from [producers of mainstream vanilla content] that they fought the fight and made it possible for me to do the more extreme stuff,” he asserted. “A lot of them have copped a plea when they got in trouble, but copping a plea is not fighting the fight. I’m fighting and doing something that will maybe help change obscenity laws. You have to be willing to get busted and go to jail to really fight the fight.”
